


Damsel

by emmaliza



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Episode: s04e07 Assassin, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26522851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaliza/pseuds/emmaliza
Summary: “You'll have to take that up with Avon and Tarrant,” she says. “Especially Tarrant. They were the ones taken in by her pretty face.”“No, Soolin,” says Orac, to her surprise. “A proper analysis of your brainwave patterns shows you believed Cancer's story more firmly than anyone. Indeed, you would not have showed the same antipathy toward her had you any doubts she was telling you the truth.”
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	Damsel

It's a relief to get back to base. Soolin is eager to wash off, to clean any lingering hint of Cancer and her venom from her skin, but when she sees Orac sitting on the table in the living quarters, buzzing away merrily, she can't help but grow irritated. “Thank you for that, Orac. We would never have fallen into Servalan's trap.”

Predictably, Orac gives a sharp whirr of offence. “On the contrary. If you had simply killed Cancer when first presented with the opportunity, none of the following difficulties you encountered would have arisen. It is not my fault you were not sufficiently logical to deduce the assassin's true identity.”

Soolin smirks to herself. Orac may have a point there. “You'll have to take that up with Avon and Tarrant,” she says. “Especially Tarrant. They were the ones taken in by her pretty face.”

“No, Soolin,” says Orac, to her surprise. “A proper analysis of your brainwave patterns shows you believed Cancer's story more firmly than anyone. Indeed, you would not have showed the same antipathy toward her had you any doubts she was telling you the truth.”

“Really.” Soolin feels cold. She doesn't like the thought Orac is analysing her behind her back, although she shouldn't be surprised.

“It fits your neurological profile,” he informs her, which does not make her feel better. “Cancer's story resembled your past enough to stir traumatic memories you are inclined to avoid, and her overt vulnerability served as an uncomfortable reminder of your own. These factors combined to make you resent her presence, as well as to compromise your ability to assess the veracity of her statements logically.”

Orac's statements, spoken with all the cold certainty of the computer he is, leave her feeling a little queasy. But she doesn't want to let on. “You've profiled us all then, I assume?”

“Well of course I have!” he says, like accusing him of anything else would be an insult to his professional pride. “If I am to offer you assistance I would be useless if I did not have a basic framework for understanding your irrational human thought patterns. I am unwilling to waste time trying to get you humans to process information rationally.”

Soolin digs her nails into her palm, tempted to laugh hysterically. She doesn't know what's funny. It's just – Orac might have profiled her within an inch of her life to determine why she couldn't bear being around that woman, but he doesn't _know_. He could never understand that sort of fear, being a small child hidden under the bed while screams and gunshots echoed through the house, clutching the toy dinosaur Father bought her as if it would protect her, the terror and then the confusion when they inevitably found her and one of them commented: _oh, this one's so pretty. Couldn't we keep her?_

She shakes her head. That memory is long gone, buried with five men in shallow graves on a rocky planet a million spacials from here. Her vengeance is done. She doesn't need it anymore.

“My apologies, Orac,” she assures him vaguely. “I'll try to behave more reasonably in future.”

She didn't know Piri was lying, but she should have. Cancer was no actress, and she overplayed her part. She played the victim types like Tarrant, who enjoy playing the hero, want to imagine – weak, helpless, defenceless; the sort who needed _them_ to come rescue her. Soolin had never needed anyone to rescue her in her life. Cancer didn't know how to keep quiet, to bide her time, to pretend she didn't even remember the family they took her from, to learn to welcome that man's hands on her, if he would teach her how to pull the trigger. Cancer didn't understand that any better than Orac does.

“You will not,” Orac declares with such certainty she is tempted to whip out her gun and blast him to pieces there and then. Avon would kill her, of course, but still – hasn't that always been how she has solved her problems?

“Yes, we can't all be the impeccable paragons of logic you are. We mere humans can only do our best.” She storms off in an uncharacteristic huff. She badly wants that shower now, coated in a cold sweat, but when she notices Avon pacing through the corridors – no doubt sulking over being tricked – she stops. She takes one deep breath, then another. She calms down. It won't do to let him know anything is amiss. Bad enough being psychoanalysed by Orac.

When he walks past her he raises his eyebrows at her, but she just nods and moves past him, without a hint that anything's wrong. There shouldn't be anything wrong. With any luck, nothing will happen that could bring all this up again.

Ruefully, she thinks: _famous last words._


End file.
